Parameters

Specifies the type of restrictions being requested on accessing the range. This parameter uses one of the values from the
LOCKTYPE enumeration.

Return value

This method can return one of these values.

S_OK

The specified range of bytes was locked.

STG_E_INVALIDFUNCTION

Locking is not supported at all or the specific type of lock requested is not supported.

STG_E_ACCESSDENIED

Access denied because the caller has insufficient permission, or another caller has the file open and locked.

STG_E_LOCKVIOLATION

Access denied because another caller has the file open and locked.

STG_E_INVALIDHANDLE

An underlying file has been prematurely closed, or the correct floppy disk has been replaced by an invalid one.

Remarks

ILockBytes::LockRegion restricts access to the specified range of bytes. Once a region is locked, attempts by others to gain access to the restricted range must fail with the STG_E_ACCESSDENIED error.

The byte range can extend past the current end of the byte array. Locking beyond the end of an array is useful as a method of communication between different instances of the byte array object without changing data that is actually part of the byte array. For example, an implementation of
ILockBytes for compound files could rely on locking past the current end of the array as a means of access control, using specific locked regions to indicate permissions currently granted.

The dwLockType parameter specifies one of three types of locking, using values from the
LOCKTYPE enumeration. The types are as follows: locking to exclude other writers, locking to exclude other readers or writers, and locking that allows only one requester to obtain a lock on the given range. This third type of locking is usually an alias for one of the other two lock types, and permits an Implementer to add other behavior as well. A given byte array might support either of the first two types, or both.

To determine the lock types supported by a particular
ILockBytes implementation, you can examine the grfLocksSupported member of the
STATSTG structure returned by a call to
ILockBytes::Stat.

Any region locked with ILockBytes::LockRegion must later be explicitly unlocked by calling
ILockBytes::UnlockRegion with exactly the same values for the libOffset, cb, and dwLockType parameters. The region must be unlocked before the stream is released. Two adjacent regions cannot be locked separately and then unlocked with a single unlock call.

Notes to Callers

Since the type of locking supported is optional and can vary in different implementations of
ILockBytes, you must provide code to deal with the STG_E_INVALIDFUNCTION error.

Notes to Implementers

Support for this method depends on how the storage object built on top of the
ILockBytes implementation is used. If you know that only one storage object at any given time can be opened on the storage device that underlies the byte array, then your
ILockBytes implementation does not need to support locking. However, if multiple simultaneous openings of a storage object are possible, then region locking is needed to coordinate them.

A
LockRegion implementation can choose to support all, some, or none of the lock types. For unsupported lock types, the implementation should return STG_E_INVALIDFUNCTION.